The importance of thinking outside the LGBT box
My Facebook feed recently filled up with posts by LGBT friends mocking the Israeli singer and songwriter Ze’ev Nehama (of Ethnix), who shared with a Yedioth Ahronoth interviewer (Hebrew) his sexual experiences with other men. In the interview, Nehama said that while he did have sexual encounters with men, he does not define himself as a homosexual, since these encounters were merely sexual, and not emotional …
The mocking comments define Nehama as a closeted homosexual, incapable of dealing with his sexual desires and orientation. These comments reflect a very deep and basic lack of acceptance and respect for experiences that do not fit into the world as experienced by the commentators. Ze’ev Nehama chose not to identify as a homosexual, while sharing his encounters with men. He was not hiding in any closet, nor was he ashamed of his experiences. His choice as he presents it derives from viewing homosexuality as an emotional and not only sexual experience, an understanding and conception that we as a community have been struggling for years to build. …
It is possible that Nehama does not develop feelings for men because due to internalization of the social misconception of men as sexual beings and women as emotional ones. It is possible that he is in denial of his feelings, since he does not want to pay the price for LGBT identification. We are not inside his head. But there is no justification whatsoever for the dismissal of his authentic life experience as he describes it, especially, from a community that striving for acceptance and understanding …
They also disregard the fact that the dictionary happens to have a definition for people attracted to both men and women – bisexual. Not only do they exclude the bisexual option, but in defining Nehama as a homosexual, they also reject his numerous and meaningful sexual encounters with women. They claim that once you have sexually experimented with men, the sex you have had with women is merely a cover story for your true homosexual identity. This statement is not only biphobic but also chauvinist, as it minimizes and degrades the significances of encounters with women.
Just as the word bisexual is missing from the LGBT lexicon, it is also missing from the heteronormative consciousness. It is possible that if the bisexual option was more commonly invoked, Nehama would have chosen to identify as such. And maybe not. But erasure of the bisexual experience within the LGBT community must end.
Leehee Rothschild has been active in the Palestinian struggle for over a decade. She currently works with Anarchists Against the Wall and Boycott From Within. She writes about activism and political struggle on her blog, Radically Blonde and other publications.
